In today's environment of global communication and global politics, understanding the religions of the world is essential to understanding world events. Christianity dominates the religious thinking of the West; Islam has become a significant factor in the politics of the Middle East and elsewhere. Israel's conflicts with its neighbors have a religious component, and in Asia, the rise of Japan and Chinese as major economic powers must be considered in light of the religions-or lack thereof-that dominate those countries. Yet religion by its very nature is a highly emotional issue, and writers are likely to have their own bias and agendas when they set out to write about the religions of the world. Two recent works, A Christian Introduction to World Religions: Neighboring Faiths by Winfried Corduan, and Religions of the World by Lewis Hopfe and Mark Woodward, seek to provide a survey of major world religions. This research evaluates the two books, compares and contrasts their styles and content, and seeks to provide an understanding of how the bias of the authors has influenced how the information is presented, and thus how readers are likely to interpret the content.
Both texts begin with a chapter concerning the nature of religion itself, and then move into individual chapters on individual religions. After discussing religion and reasons that religion is pervasive across cultures, Corduan's book moves into 10 additional chapters addressing, in order, Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, traditional religions (including African religions), Native American religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, the "offshoot" religions of Jainism, Sikhism and Baha'i, popular religion in China, and a synthesis of Shinto in Japan. Hopfe and Woodward take a geographic approach to their survey of religions, beginning first with Native American and African religions, then moving to religions originating in India (Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and ...